New Year, Same Cryptid

What 2025 Tried to Take, What Survived, and Why I’m Carrying Hope Into 2026

Content Note:
This post discusses chronic illness progression, medical trauma, car accidents, seizures, accessibility discrimination, grief, and the loss of a beloved dog.

Please read with care and take breaks if needed.

Welcome Back to the Cryptid’s Den

Welcome back to The Crippled Cryptid, where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday sorcery gather under the same soft lamp like friendly ghosts sharing secrets.

If you’re new here: hi, I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Medically interesting enough to make half my providers sigh when they open my chart. Truthfully, I sigh too. Then I roll my eyes.

I live in a haunted meat suit with a highly questionable, very out-of-date warranty.

Returning readers: welcome home.
New cryptids: welcome to the Lunatic Café.

On today’s menu:
New Year, Same Cryptid: Reflections on Growth & Predictions for 2026

Grab yourself a coffee, matcha, or whatever you think 2025 needs to usher it loudly, firmly, and without remorse out the door. It’s been one for the books.

The year has folded itself into the corners of the calendar, leaving behind candle smoke, wilted leaves, and half-spilled coffee. Somewhere between chaos and quiet, I find myself staring at the reflection of the same cryptid I’ve always been- scarred, peculiar, stubbornly alive– but also undeniably changed.

More than that, if I’m being brutally honest.

2025 stole a lot from me.

Not like a thief creeping in the night and slipping away unnoticed.
Loudly.
Ransacking everything.
Ripping apart the foundation just to see what would still stand.

What 2025 Took

My health.
You’d think that would be hard to steal from someone already chronically ill, but 2025 managed it anyway.

The car accident on October 22 made everything worse. Migraines that once coexisted peacefully now scream. Seizures arrived in December, dragging concussions behind them like wreckage. My leg- already a patchwork of old damage- now points toward surgeries still waiting in the fog.

As I write this, I’m on day two of a five-day heart monitor. My MCAS is deeply unimpressed by the guests.

The medical road feels endless, and I’m looking forward to none of it.

My sense of peace.
I used to love driving. My Jeep, my music, and my thoughts were sacred. Driving was freedom. Processing. Escape.

That sanctuary shattered in an instant.

Now, most trips are medical. Doctors. Hospitals. Pharmacies. Grocery stores. The road isn’t liberation anymore- it’s obligation. And I can’t drive, I rely on rideshare systems that routinely fail disabled people without consequence. Cancellations because mobility aids are “too much.” Racist remarks about where we live and the food bank I go to. Accessibility treated as optional.

The roads became corridors of exhaustion instead of escape.

My love of reading and writing.
Once, stories came easily- sparks from flint.

Now seizures and medications fracture my attention. I reread the same lines. Restart the same paragraphs. Struggle with my own handwriting.

I type slowly. Painstakingly. Every word a negotiation.

And yet, I keep writing.
Because M&M loves it.
Because Aunt Lise reads it.
Because even fractured magic is still magic.

My dog.
Bear crossed the Rainbow Bridge on October 28.

Watching him falter, hoping for a miracle that didn’t come, choosing kindness over more suffering- it’s a grief that settles around the ribs like cold moss. The house is quieter now. But his memory still curls up in the sunlight, lingering in the places he loved most.

Even here, even now, I can see it clearly:
Growth isn’t always a blazing dragon.
Sometimes it’s an injured mothman relearning flight.
Sometimes it’s surviving storms that would’ve destroyed you last year.

What 2025 Couldn’t Take

Because it didn’t get everything.
No matter how hard it tried.

My friends.
I don’t have many. Most don’t live close. But they stayed. Through the static. Through the hospital updates. Through the long silences when my body or brain wouldn’t cooperate.

In 2026, I want to do better. I go quiet because I’m afraid of being a burden. I promise both myself and them that, this year that I’ll reach out anyway. And when my absence hurt someone, I’ll own that too.

Accountability matters.

My family.
2025 was ruthless in its lessons.

Some people only show up when they want something. Some ignore boundaries or laugh at them. They can stay in 2025.

What I’m carrying forward are the ones who showed up anyway. In loud ways and quiet ones. Through spicy bird seed and Uber gift cards. Through FaceTime calls on food bank days. Through laughter that made hard days survivable. Recipes shared. Jokes about coffee.

Love that crossed hundreds of miles without losing warmth.

And Luna.
2025 tried to take her too.

The stories shifted. The excuses changed. They wanted her back. They offered another dog.

No.

Since Luna came home, my life has been safer. Brighter. More grounded. She isn’t a robot. She’s a puppy. She makes mistakes. She tests my patience.

Healing doesn’t arrive perfectly trained.
It arrives breathing, learning, choosing you back.

This is her home. Her hook for her vest. Her sweaters for winter. Her bandanas for summer. Her people.

She stays.

Hello, 2026

I like lists when things feel out of control. They make chaos feel named, contained, survivable.

What 2025 tried to take:
• My health
• Luna
• My love of writing
• My love of reading
• My love of driving

What it could not take:
• My family
• My friends
• Luna
• My hope

Hope is a strange thing for a pessimist to admit to having. I’m not good at looking forward. I’m excellent at hindsight. I know exactly where I trusted wrong. Exactly which questions I should’ve asked louder.

That knowledge sits heavy. It makes the future feel sharp around the edges.

I won’t pretend I’m not scared.

But hope doesn’t mean certainty.
Hope means choosing not to stop.

I want 2026 to be the year of real adventures.

Disabled ones. Dog-haired ones. Carefully planned with rest days and snacks built in. Like now- writing this from Bed Jail™ while M&M is in the bathroom and Luna snores at the end of the bed like a tiny jet engine.

I want Luna and me stronger together. M&M and me living, not just surviving. I want to load the car for family, not just pharmacies.

Maybe Texas.
Maybe Winnipeg.
Maybe just farther than fear has let us go before.

2025 tried to make me smaller.
Quieter.
Easier to erase.

It failed.

So, I step into 2026 as I am: cautious, scarred, hopeful anyway.

Same cryptid.
New year.
Lantern lit. 🕯️🦴🐾

Cryptid Predictions for 2026 ✨🦇

The Lantern Owl
Nights will still be long. Challenges will appear without warning. But wisdom and preparation will guide you forward. Keep the lantern lit, even when the fog thickens.

The Stumblefang
Adventure is coming, imperfect and strange. You’ll trip. You’ll adapt. Curiosity and courage will carry you farther than fear ever did. Pack snacks. Rest often.

The Shadow Sprite
Connections deepen. Vulnerability opens doors you didn’t know were there. Let yourself be seen.

The Mossback Troll
Healing continues quietly. Strength isn’t loud. Sometimes it’s simply showing up again tomorrow.

The Bright-Eyed Puppy (Luna)
Love multiplies in small, daily ways. Even on hard days, she will remind you what is worth protecting.

Cautious. Scarred. Hopeful.
Stubbornly alive.

That’s how I enter 2026: a cryptid with a lantern, paws in the dirt beside me, ready to track the strange and luminous trails of the coming year.

-Sky

© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

Zero pressure to donate. Reading or sharing means the world.
Support Sky’s Journey to Health and Mobility:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility

Closing Care Note:
If this reflection stirred anything heavy, please tend to yourself gently. Drink some water. Breathe. Step away if you need to. Even cryptids rest between crossings.